1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a soldering apparatus that solders electronic components on a circuit board using solder composition.
2. Description of Related Art
When soldering the electronic components on a printed circuit board, a reflow soldering apparatus is generally used. Such a reflow soldering apparatus includes a conveyor conveying the printed circuit boards and a main body of the reflow soldering apparatus into which the conveyor conveys the print circuited boards.
The main body of the reflow soldering apparatus is partitioned into three zones, namely, a preliminary heating zone, a main heating zone and a cooling zone therein. For example, each of the preliminary heating and main heating zones contains heaters, temperature controllers, motors and inverters. The cooling zone contains cooling fans and inverters. Any electronic components are mounted on the printed circuit board on which solder paste has been previously printed. The printed circuit board is then subjected to the heating in the soldering apparatus, so that the electronic components can be soldered on the printed circuit board.
Here, the general reflow soldering apparatus is equipped with electricity meters that measures an amount of consumed electrical energy in the operation of the reflow soldering apparatus. Each of the temperature controllers that control temperatures of the above-mentioned heaters or each of the inverters that control rotations of the motors driving the fans is equipped with such an electricity meter. The electricity meter displays the amount of consumed electrical energy of each of the heaters or fans.
Such a measurement is also performed in a flow type soldering apparatus in which solder melted within a solder bath is flown and electronic components are soldered on the printed circuit board by contacting a lower surface of the printed circuit board to atop layer of flown solder. This flow soldering apparatus (including partial soldering apparatus of the printed circuit board) is provided with a fluxer, preheaters, a flow solder bath, cooling device and the like. The preheaters are connected with the temperature controller that controls temperature thereof. The flow solder bath is connected with an inverter that controls a number of revolutions of each of the motors which drive screws. The temperature controller and the inverter are respectively equipped with the above-mentioned electricity meters which indicate the amount of consumed electrical energy of each of the heaters or motors.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H07-212027 has disclosed a heaters-starting-up method in which in a reflow soldering apparatus, heaters provided in the furnace start up with starting-up time of each heater being staggered so that a total amount of current of the heaters at the starting-up time thereof may be reduced.